'Tugg-ing' Movies To A Theater In Upper Valley

The Charles T. Wilder Center in Wilder hosts a variety of functions and will be the first venue in Vermont to show a film booked through a new website, Tugg.com.

What
if you could choose the movies that get shown at your local theater? That's the idea behind a new online film
crowd-sourcing site called "Tugg." It's
building a following, mostly in large cities.
But the first place in Vermont to try it is the small village of Wilder, in the Upper Valley.

Tugg
debuted online last February. Here's how it works. You log on to Tugg.com, find
a movie you like, and start rallying your friends, using the phone, email or
Facebook. The website keeps track, on screen, second by second, of the growing
audience. And when there's a break-even point, the film is booked, and tickets
go out in email.

The
multi-purpose Wilder Center started
the Tugg ball rolling a few weeks ago. To Manager Vicky Pridgen it seemed like
a good way to avoid losing money on an event.

"You are going to make the minimum amount of
money you need to make in order to have the event be a success," said Pridgen. "If only 10 people RSVP before the deadline it
won't show, that's not enough of a crowd to make a profit for Tugg or whoever
the venue is. So it was exciting to have a really low-risk way of screening
films and screening films people wanted to see."

Courtesy Wilder Center

Vicky Pridgen, general manager of the Wilder Center, is using Tugg.com to find audiences for films. The first, on July 12th, is "One Day on Earth."

It
took only a few days to get the minimum audience-about 70 people-by advertising
the documentary, One Day on Earth,
via local listserves.

Tickets
for the July 12th screening will be eight dollars. Ticket revenue is split between the distributor/filmmaker and theater, with Tugg taking a margin from that. The film documents
a single day in countries around the world.

Alexandra
Corwin was one of the first to buy a virtual ticket. A psychiatric nurse, she
thinks gathering to see and talk about movies can bring neighborhoods together.
And she likes being choosy about what she watches with friends.

"I
don't go to movies that I think are going fill my head with horror and violence
and nastiness," said Corwin. "I try to
go to things that are uplifting and I think this will probably be aimed in that
direction, too."

If, in the future, someone else does choose a horror
flick, they'll have to find enough other thrill seekers to fill the seats. The Wilder Center's Pridgen hopes that local movie buffs will use the
Tugg website to build their own audiences, let her know, and ask for her help
with publicity.